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Independent Poetry

Social Media is a Dive Bar

The digital age’s version of a crappy, all ages dive bar. Everyone is making up stories, embellishing stories & trying to seethe has the best story. Arguments are not weighted by truth or facts, merely by opinion & on how many other patrons happen to agree. A million people can be wrong.

Self-important assholes steeped in the disgusting swampy stew of their own narcissism try to talk over one another, getting louder & louder until it becomes a cacophony of loud, stupid voices. Look at me, look at me! Anything for the attention of total strangers. They will debase others, debase themselves, show each other pictures of cocks & tits in a vain search for validation.

Fights break out constantly over the most inconsequential points, folks turn rabid behind the safety of the screen, which acts as bouncer for this all ages loser’s club. You can barely understand a fucking word anyone says because they can’t even put together a proper sentence, let alone engage in civilized, intelligible conversation. There are regulars who sit there day & night until their asses can’t be distinguished from the material of the tacky stools they sit on.

Instead of bringing people together to relax, enjoy a beer with some friends & forging friendships with friends of friends who enjoy the same things it tears people apart with angry rants & atonal apologies, ripping apart real life relationships as people spit, hiss & snarl at each other, vying for attention from the mob.

Ostracism is back in force & if someone doesn’t follow the currently agreed upon values of society the pack descends on them & rips them to shreds without regard to truth or justice. Death threats, & personal information maliciously shared. The 21st century version of call Cathy for a good time scrawled in permanent marker on the bathroom stalls.

Its sickening to see how people act, how they could & would act given the chance. Mob justice with a five minute memory has people saying things they’d normally keep to themselves. Complex political issues are boiled down into single photos with propagandist slogans from all parts of the political spectrum.

If you do not conform to every single thing the mob wants they will beat you down, call you every name, discredit every word you say all in the name of free speech & equality, arguing about privilege while holding phones with internet access worth more than entire villages while the workers who mine, assemble, & dispose of the machines face unsafe conditions, late or unpaid wages & health problems can’t even afford the product they make. All so rich people can waste their time arguing over which one of them is the least privileged. You got a computer with internet access & electricity to power it? You’re fucking privileged.

The real poor & oppressed don’t get the chance to take part in these discussions. Their internet is censored. Criticize the government & they disappear. The money for internet, power, fucking cell phone plans has to go towards rent, paying debts, scoring dope, scrounging enough to feed their fucking family. It is a privilege to have the money & free time to argue about privilege. These opinion based discussions happen inside the bar, the truth decided by personal biases, the rest of the world is the homeless person begging for change outside. Click a like, sign a petition, join a group that aligns with your worldview & reject every other.

People take everything personally, just as drunks tend to do, they react angrily to perceived slights, just as drunks tend to do, they get loud & belligerent, trying to attract as much attention as possible, like peacocks doing whiskey shots & pontificating for their adoring “friends” who wait for the create to say something “wrong” & then start pecking & screeching & shitting on each other in an unbearable orgy of self-righteous narcissism. The floors are slick with blood, shit & spilled booze. The stench of stupidity is nauseating. I had to stagger outside & vomit up these words.

Social Media is a dive bar packed full of people drunk on themselves. For having social in the name you’d think it would promote some sort of unity but in reality being addicted to social media is an anti-social behaviour. Like alcoholics who don’t care who gets hurt when they drive home, people who are immersed in social media are selfish, even if they aren’t in reality. The self presented on Facebook is the ideal self, not the true self. Every interaction is between two or more idealized selves. The real self & online persona are different beings, but only one of them is real. Which are you?

To quote Tommy Lee Jones’ character in the 1997 film, Men in Black: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.“